Lipo Batteries are amazing! But like all good things, they come to an end. There’s a couple of simple steps that you can follow to ensure your battery can rest in peace!

First, look to see if there’s obvious visible causes for failure. This can be crash damage, over-discharge, and extreme swelling. If your pack is visibly damaged, we recommend discontinuing use.

Next, try to smell for warning signs. A sweet, pungent smell from a crash-damaged battery indicates that the electrolyte solution is exposed.

Also, discharging a LiPo battery below the minimum suggested voltage, which is about 3.0 volts per cell, can cause damage to a LiPo battery. This is called over-discharge.

And lastly, LiPos are designed to be used. The longer they sit on the shelf without use, the faster they will fail over time. Keep your battery cycled by fully charging and discharging every month and then keeping them at a storage charge. Still not sure where your battery stands? Get in touch with our battery tech team at Maxamps!

Once you have identified a bad battery, you must dispose of it. The best thing you can do is recycle!

How to recycle a LiPo battery?

To recycle, simply tape up any exposed leads on the battery and bring it to your local recycling center or lithium drop-off location. You can also see if your charger has a “Destroy” feature that will completely discharge your battery. If your charger does not have this feature, you can use a resistor instead. Make sure you’re in a fire-safe, outdoor location.

Only after the battery has been discharged to 0 volts, you can strip off enough insulation to join the positive and negative wires together, and throw it away! If you ever have any questions, the Maxamps team is happy to help.